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Does this bug anyone else? I get feedback like this from other web designers all the time. Why are we designing for standards instead of what our users use? Anyone who uses this mentality should be forced to use Netscape (like 30-50% of web surfers do) and realize how frustrating it is when sites are designed for standards instead of browsers. Does it suck that NS and MS don't seem to want to agree on standards? Yes. Does that mean we go with some third party standards instead of coding for what a majority of users use? No. I hope someone can see the logic of my argument. Who cares what standards say? We want PEOPLE to view our sites, not standards, so we must design for what the people use.

Goof

(Sorry to go off on you like this Creole. If you were joking, I appologize, but too many designers hold to this type of reasoning.)

actually, I wasn't joking. Netscape is a piece of crap browser and it should be destroyed like the dog that it is.

Having said that, do I make sure my site works in Netscape?

Yes!

Why? Because as you said, "My Users, use Netscape". Is it 30-50%? Not on my site(s) and I would doubt that it is on your site either. Unless you host "NetscapeUsersSupportGroup.com"

Let me explain the reasoning for my words.

If we continue to pander to companies that refuse to follow standards, then we are making more trouble for ourselves as designers down the road. Their is a reason for standards and that reason is uniformity and consistency. Can you imagine the havoc that would result from a decision to make a different formula of gasoline/petrol?

Imagine if Petrol manufacturer GasGuzzler decided to add (or leave out) an extra ingredient in their gasoline that would enable drivers to emit bright pink smoke from their exhaust pipes. Imagine then if it only worked in certain cars. If you wanted to get that all important "Pink Smoke" effect, then you would have to buy a car from Manufacturer "ABC123".

Also imagine that if you happened to use that particular type of gas in a car that did not support it, your car would burst into a bright ball of flame that would incinerate everyone within a 12 square mile radius. What then?

Don't you think that someone would be well-advised to enact some sort of standard that would prevent GasGuzzler from doing that very thing?

Is my story over the top? Yes...it's my story though!

Do you see my point? People like me are not the problem. It's the browser manufacturers and people like you that are the problem. There already exists a set of standards that browser companies have agreed to. Why then, don't their products meet those standards?

I personally like IE, I feel it is the most compliant while at the same time adding features that its users might like. To use my analogy, it allows your car to emit Pink Smoke, while at the same time preventing cars that can't from exploding.

At this point, I have nothing more to say. Keep in mind that I also have nothing against you, you are just an example.

As web desginers, we should design sites that conform to the international web standards as stated by http://w3.org.

While maintaining the standards, we should also ensure compatibility with netscape, opera etc. browsers. specifically the most common, and major browser manufacturers.

take a look at http://nortiq.com for example. I have worked hard at it to maintain compliance. there is always a way, just a matter whether you choose to find an alternative to your problems. Pure Determination is required.

I would recommend the usage of Cascading Style Sheets. Though netscpae 4 doens't support CSS1 fully, it supports hte most commonly used. This is sufficient.

Enough said, the path that you choose decides your future. I'm not saying I've chosen the right path, for I'll not know now.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
-- Albert Einstein

Lyon with all due respect because what I know compared to you or most web designers could be put on the back of a stamp. Someone told me on the dreamweaver usenet forum once that my site was way out of wack with w3.org standards and pointed me to this url to see why. Well I used it and it returned a long list of things which at first were of concern. After entering major site names such as yahoo and microsoft etc and finding out that they had longer lists of problems than I did I decided it was overkill to worry about it.

I agree with you too.
Its all up to you. The standards or not. However, the ultimate aim is to ensure your site loads properly in all the major browsers. And simple put, the easiest way is attaining compliance with web standards.

Thanks Gthorley, I've worked hard on the design to ensure a 'Tick' for the validator. Thanks again

And yes..its crucial that I attain near perfection for the design as afterall, I'm offering web development services, which include web design.

Last edited by lynlimz; Mar 21, 2001 at 10:07.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
-- Albert Einstein

Originally posted by lynlimz However, the ultimate aim is to ensure your site loads properly in all the major browsers. And simple put, the easiest way is attaining compliance with web standards.

I don't really understand. Sometimes I do wonder why I think I enjoy doing this. How is attaining compliance with standards the easiest way to ensure that your site loads properly in all the major browsers when so many of them are not standards compliant? I mean..isn't this the big problem? I know that many of the people that I work with, and work for will never upgrade a browser. A lot of them aren't too clear on what a browser is. I'm not putting them down. This is just not their thing. One site I do is for a Womens' Bar Association. The women are mostly brilliant, but are looking at the web with 640x480 resolutions because they have no idea they can change that. At least one has a laptop with a video card that doesn't support all the browser safe colors. They will upgrade either when they purchase a new computer, or in some cases, when AOL takes control of their computer and does it for them.
So, if I design a site according to the newer standards..there's a good chance it's not going display well for some of them...I think.

I don't know. In theory standards is a wonderful concept. In practice it seems to add to the confusion, at least from where I sit. Right now, in making sites that work in just about all browsers, including backwards compatibility to NN3, I know I'm also doing sites that aren't standards compliant or won't be in the near future. I had backwards compatibility drilled into my head when I started doing this and I just can't feel good about a site that doesn't work at least that far back.

while you are right in your statement, you have to consider your site audience.

what is your site about? what kind of people will it attract? consider their accessibilities ( color defficiency etc. ) how old will they be? people who are elderly, GENERALLY prefers larger text and tend to use lower resolutions.

I shall elaborate on my post. attaining web standards, would mean that your code is near or perfect. that means you should have perfect corresponding widths in your table cells, positioning of certain html elements and more.

When you do that, browsers like netscape, ie, mozilla, and opera should be able to display your page properly.

here comes the tricky part. you've overcomed the first hurdle of the display of yourr site on the major browsers. now you have to make it function well. that would include using code which are supported. this means usage of layers, javascript etc.

At this point, you have the choice of alternative methods of implementation. consier your options, and test properly for compatibility.

I won'y go beyond this phrase, but you should figure that my first statement was directed at the beginning of phrase 1 =)

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
-- Albert Einstein

1) It is a matter of some pride to persons like Lyon and myself (and many others on the forum) that our pages are compliant. It validates our skill in design, both pure design (layout) as well as our skill in coding and programming.

Is it "necessary" for your page to be validated? Of course not. But keep this in mind. The longer you hold out on learning proper HTML, CSS and such, the worse off you will be in just a year or so.

I tell you now people, when xHTML compatible browsers hit the market, there will be TREMENDOUS outcries from people whose sites are not compliant.

Just a little snip from the xHTML spec:

1) All tags, and attributes must be in lower case.
2) All tags must be closed.
3) All values must be quoted.

There is much more to the spec, but JUST THOSE 3 things will cause about 25% of the sites on the internet to crash or not display properly. View just about any site on the net...you will find UPPER CASE tags, values that aren't quoted, inconsistencies in the code and so on and so forth.

I suggest you learn now. It's not going to hurt anything now and you will save yourself MUCH headache later.

That's kind of my point. I do know proper HTML. I don't know proper CSS, because actual browsers couldn't agree on what they supported and it was of greater concern to me that my sites actually worked than that they be compliant with standards that were largely theoretical.
Coming up with a standard that will cause 25% of sites to crash is not a very user friendly, designer friendly or even smart way of implementing progress. It's also very hard on small businesses which have spent what they could on getting a site designed and now will need new coding. And when you add in the fact that people will upgrade to browsers that adhere to the new standard over a long period of time, not all at once..chaos. One thing it does for designers is assure them of plenty of work as they will have to fix code that wan't broken when it was written. Any standards should have been written to allow for total backwards compatibility. That was what the web was built on and it's a very solid foundation.

backwards compatibility is good to a certain extent, but there comes a time when you simply MUST throw out the baby with the bathwater. That time I feel, is rapidly approaching.

At some point, browser manufacturers simply have to say...I'm sorry, wewon't make software that will run on your pentium90 with 8 megs of ram. The same goes true for my sites. I do the same thing you do, which is build them to work in the most popular browsers and make sure they don't suck in the others.

At the same time, I do my best to implement code that will be efficient in browsers that support stylesheets and dHTML like IE 5.5. I try to think of some of the sites that I have rebuilt. I hated their code. It was ineffecient, jumbled, inconsistent and just plain crap.

I know that's true. It's just hard to get used to. When I first got to the web, it was considered a major sin if your site didn't at least work in all browsers that were ever produced and not real good form if it didn't display decently in them. It's true that I don't try too hard for compliance with Netscape 2 or below. I sort of cut it off at 3, because 3 was easy to upgrade to. After that the browsers got huge so some people stuck with 3 long after the 4x's came out and some people ran 3 even after upgrading to 4 because it was quicker. Actually, it's still quicker. There are many fewer of them now but they do show up sometimes.

Originally posted by creole actually, I wasn't joking. Netscape is a piece of crap browser and it should be destroyed like the dog that it is. Yadda yadda yadda, etc...

I totally agree that NS is crap and not standards complient, but considering Netscape is (or at least WAS) a major browser I really don't think they (Netscape) care how we code. They know if they have a product a lot of people use, and we want those people to view our sites, that we will code for those people. I don't think enough people are educated to blame the browser, but instead the blame falls on the site (or the designer). Therefore, our users (and ultimately we) get the short end of the stick while only the knowledgable are able to point the proper finger at Netscape. Thankfully the word is finally getting around that NS4.x was terrible and from the little I've seen, NS 6.01 is a lot better. Here's to hoping we never have to go through something like NS4.x again...

Goof

P.S. Creole, I know you don't have anything against me, and I have nothing against you. You're actually a kinda cool guy (sorta). haha!